VIENNA (Reuters) – Austrians voted in a parliamentary election on Sunday with a resurgent far right party challenging the political establishment and calling for an end to taxpayer-funded bailouts of struggling euro zone countries.

The governing Social Democrats (SPO) and their People’s Party (OVP) conservative partners were counting on their record in piloting the Alpine republic through the global financial crisis relatively unscathed to win another five-year term.

VIENNA (Reuters) – A resurgent right-wing party keen to end taxpayer-funded bailouts of euro zone laggards takes on Austria’s political establishment in parliamentary elections on Sunday.

The ruling Social Democrats (SPO) and their People’s Party (OVP) conservative partners are counting on their record in piloting the Alpine republic through the global financial crisis relatively unscathed to win another five-year term.

VIENNA (Reuters) – Austrian insurer Uniqa (UNIQ.VI: Quote, Profile, Research) launched a share sale on Monday that aims to raise around 750 million euros (623 million pounds) for expansion abroad and boost its free float to as much as 36.7 percent.

Its “re-IPO” – so called because it will raise the free float from just 7 percent – is set be the biggest deal on the Vienna Stock Exchange since the 411 million-euro initial public offering (IPO) of aluminium group AMAG (AMAV.VI: Quote, Profile, Research) in April 2011.

VIENNA, Sept 23 (Reuters) – Austrian insurer Uniqa
launched a share sale on Monday that aims to raise around 750
million euros ($1 billion) for expansion abroad and boost its
free float to as much as 36.7 percent.

Its “re-IPO” – so called because it will raise the free
float from just 7 percent – is set be the biggest deal on the
Vienna Stock Exchange since the 411 million-euro initial public
offering (IPO) of aluminium group AMAG in April 2011.

VIENNA (Reuters) – Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann wants to preserve the centrist, pro-European coalition his Social Democrats (SPO) lead with the conservative People’s Party (OVP) should his party win parliamentary elections next week, he told a Sunday newspaper.

But late gains by two small parties threaten to block a new version of the “grand coalition” of the two big blocs that have dominated post-war politics, opinion polls showed ahead of next Sunday’s vote in the Alpine republic.

(A cross is reflected in the water as Pope Benedict XVI celebrates a holy mass in St. Stephens cathedral in Vienna on September 9, 2007. REUTERS/Laszlo Balogh)

Holy water at religious shrines and churches in Austria is often contaminated with fecal matter and bacteria, researchers have found, advising the faithful not to drink it, especially in hospital chapels.

VIENNA (Reuters) – A business leader’s offhand pre-election comment that Austria is “going to the dogs” has galvanized a debate about whether the nation’s enviable prosperity will wither away.

The remark by Chamber of Commerce head Christoph Leitl held up a mirror to a comfortable and slightly coddled country that sailed through five years of economic crisis with little of the misery that euro zone peers like Greece or Cyprus endured.

VIENNA, Sept 16 (Reuters) – Raiffeisen Bank International
shares dropped on Monday after emerging Europe’s
second-biggest lender raised its forecast for bad loan
provisions by as much as a fifth, heightening concern about its
emerging markets exposure.

VIENNA, Sept 16 (Reuters) – UniCredit Bank Austria
said its business was largely unaffected by market turmoil in
Turkey and Slovenia as investors fled from high-yield assets in
anticipation of the U.S. Federal Reserve scaling back its
stimulus package.

Turkey, which relies on foreign capital to give it the hard
currency it needs to buy oil and other imports, has been hit
particularly hard in recent weeks as investors began to withdraw
much of the cheap dollar funding poured into the U.S. banking
system by the Fed.

Der Standard newspaper had reported the figure as a
worst-case scenario, saying this came from an internal central
bank (OeNB) report on the troubled lender, which has already
received more than 3 billion euros from the government.

About Michael

"Mike has worked for Reuters for two decades and reported from more than a dozen countries on business and general news. His beats have included covering the European automotive industry, business news from Switzerland, German defense and security policy, and Hungary's transition to a market democracy after the collapse of communism in eastern Europe"